Volkswagen's emissions scandal is still wreaking havoc on the company

A destroyed Volkswagen beetle old timer stands in a field after a crash with three other cars on an icy street between Hanau and Offenbach-Muehlheim, 25km south of Frankfurt, December 10, 2011. Two drivers were killed in this crash as police reported hundreds of car crashes and accidents across Germany due to icy streets. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach People in Europe are buying more new cars than at any point in the last five years, but Volkswagen is missing out on the action as the effects of September's emissions scandal continue to bite.

Of the 1.1 million new cars bought in the final month of 2015, by the far the biggest sellers were cars manufactured by the Volkswagen group.

This might sound like positive news, but actually VW's market share has slumped from 25% in December 2014, to just 22.5% at the end of last year. On top of this, every single one of the Volkswagen group's brands lost market share.

VW itself lost the biggest chunk of its market share, with 0.9% of sales disappearing, while other Volkswagen owned brands like Audi, Seat, and Skoda all lost roughly 0.5% of their share of sales.

What's even worse for VW is that compared to all the other major European brands, it only managed to increase overall sales by a tiny margin. Sales by the company grew by 4.4% in December, which is pretty dreadful compared to the likes of Renault, which saw sales jump by 28.6%; BMW, which sold 19% more cars; and Peugeot, where 26.6% more cars were sold in December.

More information about what's going on at Renault isn't known yet, but if it emerges that the company has been carrying out similar practices to Volkswagen, that 28.6% sales growth could well disappear.